Pirate Radio 041310

In the mid-60’s it was illegal for radio stations in Britain to play rock and roll. In an act of civil disobedience, several DJ’s put radio transmission equipment on tanker ships and broadcast from off the coast. Pirate Radio follows the daily life of the most popular ship after a new boy, Carl, arrives on the ship as well as the government’s attempts to shut them down.

I liked this movie, if for no other reason than the soundtrack is amazing. The cast is also a Brit-com dream: Rhys Darby (Flight of the Conchords), Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead), Chris O’Dowd (IT Crowd), and Katherine Parkinson (IT Crowd). Beyond that it also has Emma Thompson (a lot of stuff), Kenneth Branaugh (a lot of stuff), Bill Nighy (Underworld, Pirates of the Caribbean 2&3), Jack Davenport (Pirates of the Caribbean), and Phillip Seymour Hoffman (a lot of stuff). The scenes in the ship are random but they’re a lot of fun to watch. This little known part of rock history is also just fascinating to learn about, however inaccurate the film may be. It’s also really funny.

The biggest complaints that I have with this movie are three-fold. First, you had the government working hard to come up with ways to shut down the stations but back on the ship, nothing ever comes of it. There is the whole based on a true story thing but they could’ve played it up a little bit. The second, this is an unnecessarily R rated movie. The drugs are never shown but implied. The sex is never shown but implied and the one scene of nudity, completely unnecessary. So the language is not needed. This could’ve easily been a PG-13 movie but they went for the R. This doesn’t bother me too much but from a marketing perspective... yeah. There was one scene that without the language would not have been nearly as funny. Third, how in the world did Jack Black not get on board this movie?

Great characters, fun cast, good script and fun setting. If you like Rock, watch this movie. B+. You’ll want to see it at least twice.